I'm a software engineer with over 14 years of experience developing websites and web applications.
I'm fluent in PHP, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, a variety of frontend frameworks (React, Vue, etc), and various flavors of SQL. I also have a working knowledge of Python, Go, TypeScript, and Ruby. I've dabbled with Rust, Elixir, Crystal, OCaml, Swift, C, and C++. In addition, I'm well-versed in working on the command line and with Linux-based systems. I'm also familiar with a handful of AWS services including EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, and CloudFormation.
I first learned that there was such a thing as "programming" was when I picked up a book on QuickBasic at a thrift store when I was around 10 years old. Through a lot of trial and error - and no small amount of computer crashes - I eventually got the hang of it and started making small programs. Text-based guessing games, faux password login screens, and many others I've forgotten with time.
During high school I picked up HTML and JavaScript, with a little bit of (the still fairly new) CSS. I would find sites I liked and view the source, trying to understand how they worked. It was slow going due to living overseas at that time and having an extremely slow internet connection. But, with time I started I made websites for myself, for family, and even a couple for the organization my parents worked for.
The college I ended up attending didn't have a computer science or web development program, so I enrolled in Digital Media Arts, which was a mix of graphic design, cinematography, photography, and a handful of web dev classes. However, I was fortunate enough to get a work-study all four years working on and maintaining the school's website.
After college, I worked at a small mom and pop company that specialized in Italian restaurant equipment. I was the only developer, and ended up being a jack-of-all-trades IT guy and website developer. This was when I got my first exposure to PHP, MySQL, and WordPress. I completely rebuilt the company's very outdated HTML-file based website and modernized it with WordPress.
Since then I've worked for startups (including co-founding two), agencies, and now a SaaS - I even taught English for a year in South Korea. Along the way I've picked up multiple new languages and frameworks, and have the opportunity to work on projects seen by dozens of people and by millions of people. I even throw together a small side project together from time-to-time. Some of those even end up on my Github .